AHC: Israeli Sinai

I'm wondering if there might be a way to arrange for Israel to keep the Sinai permanently, with the Egytian border more or less at the canal that also allows the canal to reopen more or less as OTL without creating WWIII in the process? Bonus points if Israel fully annexes the Sinai to the canal (seems to have been the intention before the withdrawal OTL with the rather aggressive militarization and settlement).

I really don't know much of the details of the peace negotiations, but the whole thing seems distinctly unlikely... Maybe the Suez crisis can be manipulated somehow?
 
I think that must happen before WWII, since superpower involvement will be assured thereafter, meaning that Israel can get the Sinai only if it has the backing of both superpowers.

I think a possibility could be build around Britain supporting a Jewish state much more on one side and tensions between Egypt and Britain before independence being much higher (maybe add an Egypt sovereign default), leading to Britain annexing the canal zone as a colony and giving the Sinai to Palestine/Israel as a way to keep Egypt away.
 
Before WWII means that Britain has a puppet king in Egypt, and Palestine is one of the most troublesome colonies.

I think the best bet is the peace deals with Egypt falling apart, but you'd need far more radical leaders. Between '67 and '73, basically all of the Israeli right favoured annexation, and damn the consequences. If negotiations are derailed, they have a significant chance of pushing through the necessary laws.

It is practically impossible to have the Canal be open if it's on the border. Would it be OK if part of the Sinai is returned? If so, this scenario could work. (Israel was partway through the withdrawal in 1977).http://https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=249578
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You could have Israel intelligence agency do better in 73. If they correctly anticipated the attack (say high place spy in Egypt), then then either might be able to hold or regain the full Canal line. And without the victory, Sadat lacks the political cover for a peace deal. This could get you something like the Golan Heights today. And since Israel often treated the desert tribes fairly well, maybe the could stage a plebiscite or some other stunt to gain some international acceptance.
 
Eisenhower after his retirement viewed his failure to back France-UK-Israel as the worst failure of his President, he backs their play, the USSR isn't ending the world for Nasser, and Sinai is Israeli.

I don't think that the Soviets even had the capability to end the world until the late sixties, so this POD sounds pretty solid.
 
The problem isn't having Israel hold onto the Sinai; that part is trivially easy. The circumstances that led to the signing of the peace treaty were more "delicate and fragile" than "inevitable". As for Israeli annexation, Israel definitely intended to annex: there were Garini Nahal (army units that trained together for the purpose of founding new agricultural settlements) in the Sinai hours or days after the tanks. Thousands of Israeli civilians were resident in the Sinai when the peace treaty was signed (not a lot, but not bad for newly-conquered desert).

I was going to say that the big problem is getting Egypt to play nice, but IOTL the Egyptians actually opened the canal in 1975, 4 years before the Egypto-Israeli peace treaty. So I guess even in the absence of the peace treaty, the canal may remain open - though closing, of course, at the first sign of hostilities. The UN may want to station a peacekeeping/observation unit on the canal, for whatever that's worth.

One additional note:
And since Israel often treated the desert tribes fairly well

That's...not so true. Within Israel proper, the government forced the Bedouins to settle into permanent towns and cities, as well as subjecting them to arguably discriminatory land use laws and policy. There's no reason to assume the same thing wouldn't happen in the Sinai.
 
As for Israeli annexation, Israel definitely intended to annex

Not entirely accurate. If you look at a map of the settelments you can see that most of them were around Gaza, out of the intention of separating Gaza from the Sinai. There were 3 more IIRC along the coast to the straits of Tiran. The intention there was to assure the stratigic straits would remain open. The 1975 ceasefire agreement is nearly identical to the Israeli offer 3 weeks after the Six day war - Returning a third of the Sinai to Egypt, giving a third to the UN as a buffer zone, and keeping a third with control over the straits in exchange for a non-aggresion agreement with Egypt. There was never an intention of keeping the entire Sinai all the way to the Suez canal. Besides, peace could only come in exchange for the entire Sinai, and peace is better then keeping a part of the Sinai. The straits remain open, the entire Suez is a buffer zone, and removing Egypt as a threat.

I just don't think a POD in 1956, 1967 or 1973 would work. It needs to happen during the British mandate.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
That's...not so true. Within Israel proper, the government forced the Bedouins to settle into permanent towns and cities, as well as subjecting them to arguably discriminatory land use laws and policy. There's no reason to assume the same thing wouldn't happen in the Sinai.

Many of the desert tribesmen complain that Egypt treated them worse than Israel, who saw them as useful allies. It is not an assumption, but history.
 
Many of the desert tribesmen complain that Egypt treated them worse than Israel, who saw them as useful allies. It is not an assumption, but history.

Maybe...but that's just because Israel never got around to consolidating their control over the peninsula. You can bet that sooner or later the Israeli government is going to decide they're less than pleased about a few tens of thousands of uneducated, untaxed, unrecorded residents.
 
I just don't think a POD in 1956, 1967 or 1973 would work. It needs to happen during the British mandate.

got to disagree with you there, 1956 is the best call, Israel gets the Sinai, Nasser stays in power (like post 1967) Egypt won't attack the French-British Suez zone, thus can't hit Israel and with out a win of some kind the Egyptian people will never ever go for Peace, maybe Israel would never annex but it'd be de facto theirs forever
 
got to disagree with you there, 1956 is the best call, Israel gets the Sinai, Nasser stays in power (like post 1967) Egypt won't attack the French-British Suez zone, thus can't hit Israel and with out a win of some kind the Egyptian people will never ever go for Peace, maybe Israel would never annex but it'd be de facto theirs forever

Possible, but only if Egypt does not try to kick the British and the French at a later date (a decade or two later).
 
Possible, but only if Egypt does not try to kick the British and the French at a later date (a decade or two later).

doubtful, super doubtful if America backs the play and the USSR backs down, it'd be Egypt against two European powers, with Israel's backing on the Ground and US's backing with out USSR cover, they might try it if they think they can get the other Arab nations on-board with it, but Jordan isn't going for it against their friends the Brits, and SA hates Nasser and is too close to America, Syria and Lebanon maybe but not really able to hit France or the UK only Israel
 
Aside from being a buffer, is there anything in the Sinai worth having? Any oil or gold? I can't imagine it being all that good for farming.
 
Aside from being a buffer, is there anything in the Sinai worth having? Any oil or gold? I can't imagine it being all that good for farming.

oil, there is oil in the Sinai, not enough to be a world player, but it still covers all of Egypt's needs.
 

Yonatan

Banned
Aside from being a buffer, is there anything in the Sinai worth having? Any oil or gold? I can't imagine it being all that good for farming.

Oil, iron, phosphates, and I belive uranium, or at least it was belived to have uranium at some point, cant remember.
 

Riain

Banned
The oil thing could be very important, there are significant oilfields in the Sinai which were hnaded back to Egypt between 1975 and 1982. These aren't much on an international scale but would make Israel both energy independent and an oil exporter. I wonder if this oil was significant in the Egyptian peace process.
 
The oil thing could be very important, there are significant oilfields in the Sinai which were hnaded back to Egypt between 1975 and 1982. These aren't much on an international scale but would make Israel both energy independent and an oil exporter. I wonder if this oil was significant in the Egyptian peace process.

I don't recall Israel exporting oil, but IIRC, part of the peace deal included retroactive payments for the oil that was pumped by Israel.
 

Riain

Banned
I don't recall Israel exporting oil, but IIRC, part of the peace deal included retroactive payments for the oil that was pumped by Israel.

That sucks, if Egypt didn't want Israel to pump Sinai oil they shouldn't have precipitated a war by closing the Straits of Tiran and then lost.
 
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